The present invention relates generally to interactive applications involving a television broadcast, and more particularly, to a system that enables television viewers to join in an audio conference linked to a program being viewed.
The marriage of TV and computing technologies has led to a lot innovative ideas aiming at making the passive TV viewer part of an interactive world of entertainment, information, shopping and other multimedia services. Movies, games on demand, on line shopping, distance learning, are a few of the many exciting applications that are made possible with interactive TV. Cable companies, TV Broadcasters, telephone companies, specialized interactive television companies and many computer companies are all working to provide interactive television.
Currently, there are provided a variety of interactive TV systems. For example, there exists interactive TV systems for video on demand and video gaming. These interactive systems relate to sending and receiving data to set top boxes to enable interactivity with the video distribution systems or a computer system to play games, etc. These systems respond to a request by providing the desired video stream and do not provide for audio interaction with the broadest center and the TV programming. Examples of such systems can be found in prior U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,638,113 and 5,594,491.
There is available, an interactive game system called xe2x80x9cTwo Way TVxe2x80x9d made by Two WAy TV, Limited in the U.K. which allows TV viewers to participate in a game with other viewers by sending data via their desktop box. The service enables viewers to join in TV shows and compete for prizes. There is no audio involved, the viewers participate into the game by sending their responses from a set-top box. The viewer responses are collected remotely and the winner is broadcast from the TV station.
As another example, there exists Interactive TV services to provide audio and video conferencing. These are interactive television services where participants engage in two-way audio and video conferences between a plurality of remote broadcast sides. These conferences are not linked to TV programming and cannot be initiated by the participants. Examples of such systems can be found in prior U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,675,373 and 4,360,827. The functionality enabling the audio conferencing in these prior art systems is obtained by displaying a dial-in-number in which viewers have to dial-in the displayed number to join a conference call.
Still there exist interactive systems that provide communications between a cordless phone and a TV set. Some systems propose a method to display telephony related information on the TV set and to control the TV set by using a cordless phone. The cordless phone is only used to interact with the set top box for data communication as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,671,267.
There further exists interactive systems that integrate TV systems with Internet applications. These systems allow users to use their TV sets to access the World Wide Web.
The concept of linking audio conferences to television programming is not found in any of these integration efforts.
Thus, it would be highly desirable to provide an apparatus enabling TV viewers to participate in audio conferences that are directly linked to the TV programs that they are watching.
Additionally, it would be highly desirable to provide an apparatus enabling TV viewers to participate in audio conferences that are linked to the programs that they are watching by simply pushing a button on a remote control device resulting in an automatic dial out by an audio bridge.
It is an object of the invention is to provide an apparatus enabling TV viewers to participate in audio conferences that are directly linked to the TV programs that they are watching.
It is a further object of the invention to provide an apparatus enabling TV viewers to participate in audio conferences that are linked to the programs that they are watching, without the need to dial in to a conference call.
It is another object of the invention to provide an apparatus enabling TV viewers to participate in audio conferences that are linked to the programs that they are watching by simply pushing a button on a remote control device resulting in an automatic dial out to an audio bridge.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide an apparatus enabling TV viewers to participate in audio conferences that are linked to the programs that they are watching, and that, depending on a remote control button being activated, enables switching of their telephone line among different conferences so that viewers can switch from one conference to another without having to dial a second conference call number.
According to the principles of the invention there is provided a system allowing television viewers to participate in an audio conference from audio-enabled remote control devices that are equipped with microphones and speakers without requiring the viewer to xe2x80x9cdial inxe2x80x9d as in a conventional conference call. The system determines the TV channel being watched by the viewer and collects the viewer information that is coming from the remote control device. The user input information is transmitted to the audio conference control center. The information regarding all the viewers interested in participating in an audio conference are collected and processed at an audio conference control center. The operation and billing centers are connected to the audio conference control center. The operation center reserves the conference resources for the TV program channels through the audio conference control center. The billing information is sent to the billing center at the end of each conference.
Particularly, the TV program broadcasters notify their viewers by displaying a sign on their TV monitors that there is an audio conferencing facility reserved for them. A viewer who watches the program sends a request from a remote control devices to a set-top box and that request is then sent to the audio conference control center. The audio conference control center dials the viewer out and connects viewer""s telephone to the conference. The viewer receives the call and automatically joins to the audio conferencing bridge. The coordination between the reserved audio conferences and the TV broadcasting is done by an Operation Center.
Advantageously, the methodology promotes TV viewers to share their opinions or exchange information regarding the program they are currently viewing either among themselves in small private groups or with the TV program host.